VOLUME 19, ISSUE 1
WINTER 2012
BEACON Full Circle A JOINT PUBLICATION OF THE GRAND LODGE OF OHIO AND THE OHIO MASONIC HOME
Coming
A Childhood Resident Returns To Springfield IN THIS ISSUE:
OMH Scholarship ....................... 4 Life Compass .............................. 9 2nd Annual Symposium on Freemasonry and the Civil War .. 10 Masonic Model Student Assistance Program ................... 12 A Fond Farewell ........................ 14 Jim Ziegler as a youth at the Ohio Masonic Home.
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n years past, it was common for children to be placed in large, institutional homes. In some cases they were orphans with no family members to take them in. In many other cases, the parents were unable to provide for their children but wanted to ensure that they would have a safe and caring home. From 1897 through 1956, the Ohio Masonic Home in Springfield was just such a place. It was home to a total of 740 children, including James Ziegler who arrived in 1935 and would return decades later to make the Springfield Masonic Community his home again. “My mother died in 1935 when I was nine years old,” Jim
says. “My father worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and he just wasn’t able to care for me and my younger brothers and sister. Dad, grandfather and uncles were all Masons, so he was able to send us to the Ohio Masonic Home.” While many children at the Springfield home were parentless, others shared Jim’s situation; their parents were simply not able to care for them. These children stayed at the home until they were 18 or until their parents’ situation improved and the families could be reunited. “We lived in the Cunningham Building,” Ziegler says. “It was a nice place, but there were rules. Boys and girls were mostly kept
apart from one another. There was an imaginary line, and the boys stayed on one side and the girls on the other. That rule even applied to brothers and sisters, so I didn’t get to see my younger sister very often.” Five years after arriving, Jim’s father remarried and was able to bring his children home. Sixty years later, in 2000, Jim returned with his wife to the Springfield Masonic Community campus as residents. “She had severe arthritis and needed the kind of care we could get here,” Jim says. “This arrival was much more pleasant than the first time. The campus was so
1935
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